College Hockey:

This past week, the NCAA Ice Hockey Committee and Championship Coordinator Tom Jacobs let representatives seven cities know that they were invited to come to Couer d’Alene, Idaho. Not just for a little rest and relaxation, but also to let them give a formal presentation for the purpose of debating where the 2004-2006 Frozen Fours would be held.

The bid process began earlier this year when the NCAA openly solicited bids for the three Frozen Fours. Interested parties were given until June 1, 2000, to get their applications in. The committee then had a conference call and, this past Wednesday, the field was narrowed to seven finalists.

The bid package that prospective sites had to submit included several criteria that each site had to fulfill. Among these criteria were:

Facility Requirements and Needs (Seating Capacities, etc.)

Locker Room Space

Media Facilities

Hotel Facilities

Headquarter Hotel

Media Hotel

Officials Accommodations

Team Accommodations

Fan Accommodations

Financial Projections

Ticket Prices

Projected Ticket Sales

These are just samplings of what each site had to prepare.

There were 14 prospective sites that submitted bids by June 1. Those sites were (in alphabetical order, with arena and bidders):

Staying Home

Why were Albany, Anaheim, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Grand Forks, Madison and Orlando cut from the list? There are a few possible reasons.

“The building is very important for the players, and that’s the most important thing we’re looking at,” said Bill Wilkinson, head coach at Wayne State and chair of the Ice Hockey Committee. “That we can get a quality building, similar to the Providence Civic Center, with hotels nearby and all the amenities that go with it, that’s the key.

“We don’t want to have the players 10, 15 miles away from the facility because it becomes a bus trip every time they go to practice and the games. The easier it is on the players, the better.”

This was a major concern in Anaheim, and is probably one of the reasons that city was struck from the list. The other possibility is that Anaheim was being compared against San Jose as a potential finalist, and the San Jose bid was better than that of its California neighbor.

“You probably won’t see an arena with under 15,000 seats,” said Jack McDonald, athletic director at Quinnipiac and member of the Ice Hockey Committee.

That would strike Albany, Cincinnati and Grand Forks from the list.

Madison was probably knocked off because it was being compared to Milwaukee — a site that has already hosted Frozen Fours.

The best guess as to Atlanta’s unsuccessful bid would probably be the lack of an association with a collegiate hockey institution. After all, Georgia State is not well known for their hockey program. This would probably partially apply to Anaheim’s bid as well.

And Orlando’s bid was likely hampered by its distance and the lack of arena facilities.

“If there was a perfect world, and if Disney World had a big arena, it would be a no-brainer,” said McDonald on the Orlando bid. “But it was a 15-20 minute ride between sites, so that didn’t help.”

Moving On

A little more than one month from now, seven groups will give presentations that will, they hope, bring college hockey’s crown jewel to their city.

“Each city is given an hour to an hour and a half to come in and make a presentation to the committee, to tell us about their facility, tell us about their hotels, tell us about their transportation, everything that goes on with running the tournament,” said Tom Jacobs, the NCAA Director of Championships. “It’s a chance for them to try to sell their community to the hockey committee and try to convince them that’s the place to go.”

What exactly is important to the committee and what do they intend to look for?

“The bottom line are two criteria,” said McDonald. “I can’t weight one over the other. One is the financial guarantee and the other is the atmosphere for the fans and the players.

“If we all had a perfect world, we would like to see Providence have 20,000 seats. Because of their atmosphere, Boston’s atmosphere, Albany’s atmosphere.

“The other thing is financial. For example, there was a significant amount of money generated in Boston. That’s because a lot of the officials, teams, fans were all from the area, so the net cost and the ticket guarantee, and considering what it costs for the NCAA to put it on, is considered. All things considered, the financial success of Anaheim, considering it was 3,000 miles away, was pretty good. [Factor in] what it took to get all the teams to play out there, and the net receipts for the tournament dropped.”

Said Jacobs, “I think anybody that can return that sort of investment back to the Association [should be considered]. Out of 81 championships, there’s very few that actually operate at a profit when you take into account the fact that we pay transportation and per diem costs for all the teams for the entire tournament, and that’s true for all our championships. And with men’s basketball paying for all 64 teams in the tournament, you can imagine those costs get to be pretty staggering.

“Ice hockey has been one of a handful of championships that have operated at a profit over the last several years. As a matter of fact, a couple of years ago when we were at the Fleet Center, I think we did end up generating about $875,000 to the Association. That money doesn’t necessarily go back to the hockey tournament. It goes back to the overall pool of money that’s then distributed back to the membership.

“It is a big responsibility for us and for the committee to try to pick sites where we are going to maximize that type of revenue because in the big picture in the end, it all goes back to member schools, so we’re able to return more money to them by going to places such as Boston that generate that sort of profit. Most years, we’re pretty consistent in terms of revenue generation behind the men’s basketball tournament.”

There will be many things to consider come July when the seven sites make their bids and no one really knows exactly how the committee will be swayed by the presentations.

Possibly related:

The following is a self-policing forum for discussing views on this story. Comments that are derogatory, make personal attacks, are abusive, or contain profanity or racism will be removed at our discretion. USCHO.com is not responsible for comments posted by users. Please report any inappropriate or offensive comments by clicking the “Flag” link next to that comment in order to alert the moderator.

Please also keep “woofing,” taunting, and otherwise unsportsmanlike behavior to a minimum. Your posts will more than likely be deleted, and worse yet, you reflect badly on yourself, your favorite team and your conference.

Jayson Moy is a senior writer and has been with USCHO since its inception. He covered the ECAC from 1996 to 2003 and is the 2001 receipient of the ECAC Media Recognition Award. He has been writing Bracketology since 2004 and has never missed predicting the NCAA field.Tweets by @JaysonMoyUSCHO

Commentary

East Rutherford is an interesting site for a few reasons. It is in the largest market in the country, the Tri-State New York area. The ECAC has shown that they can put on a Frozen Four (Albany in 1992 and in 2001). College Hockey alumni abound in the greater metropolitan area as well. One thing that might work against this site is the ECAC and Hockey East’s attempt to put on a doubleheader at Madison Square Garden in 1998. It was eventually moved to Hartford for lack of interest, and abandoned entirely last year.

There certainly are a lot of fans who would love an opportunity to be at the Meadowlands, though hotels could be a potential problem. But all in all, the site would be great in bringing college hockey to a huge city.

I really don’t think it matters who Boston is pitted against. The Frozen Four made a profit in 1998, the FleetCenter is an outstanding facility, and the city provides one of the best atmospheres in college hockey. One would have to believe that Boston is a lock for one of the Frozen Four’s, most particularly 2004.

“We’ve come a great distance from where we started, and the championships the last four, five years have been outstanding,” said Wilkinson. “The FleetCenter, that was one of the better venues we had. Certainly Milwaukee’s been great. St. Paul … you go down the list.”

If you take a look at Milwaukee, one has to think that city has a good shot to host the Frozen Four once again. Along with the FleetCenter and Boston University, the Bradley Center and Wisconsin have hosted it before (in 1997). And the Bradley Center, like the Fleet, also hosts a conference championship. Everything seems to be in place, from hotels to arena to atmosphere.

Columbus brings the NHL into town starting this season and hopefully college hockey in 2004, 2005, or 2006. Columbus is definitely a college town and can draw the collegiate atmosphere, but one question could be whether the NCAA believes Ohio State can host the event. There is also a brand new arena, interest in college hockey generated by the Buckeyes over the past few seasons and an attitude that it can work.

“All of these buildings will fill, the tournament is big enough so it will do it,” said McDonald. “But, what’s important for all of these fans that have been going to the tournaments for the past 20 years? Do they have to jump on a plane, so you have to take all those into consideration.”

And you certainly have to do that for San Jose. Remember what McDonald said earlier about the net revenue dropping when the NCAA went to Anaheim? Going to California would mean another possibility of that happening.

“It could work against [a place like San Jose],” McDonald acknowledged. “But that’s why the [financial] guarantee needs to be high. Though I think you have to consider all of the other things.”

San Jose is a great NHL town, there is no doubt about it. The arena is fantastic, the city is well equipped to handle the crowds and, let’s admit it, people are still curious about the California experience and college hockey.

And let’s not forget, there’s something called Silicon Valley close by that has a lot of college graduates, particularly in the engineering field. That is why San Jose sought out Rensselaer to co-host this event. Rensselaers experience in regionals and Frozen Fours will enhance this bid.

Kansas City has to be compared to St. Louis. The two cities seem intertwined here and St. Louis is definitely known as a better hockey town than Kansas City is at the moment. The Blues are a big help towards St. Louis’ bid.

The hosts for these two cities is also interesting, as they geographically don’t seem to mesh. After all Omaha is closer to Kansas City and Huntsville is closer to St. Louis. The two locations seem to have switched. But, looking at San Jose and Rensselaer, it doesnt really seem to matter. It’s simply a matter of which school hooks on with which bid city in hopes of creating the best match.

Alabama-Huntsville and Nebraska-Omaha do not have any experience in hosting Frozen Fours, but Kansas City does have a big tradition in hosting Big XII championships. The basketball tournament is there every year and, this year, they will be adding the football championship to the calendar. St. Louis did have the Conference USA championships in basketball a few years back.

But the big question, of course, is what the effect is of taking the Frozen Four out of the traditional markets. These three sites certainly have odds stacked against them, but then again, maybe not.

“I think we’d like to spread college hockey throughout the entire USA, if possible,” said Wilkinson. “We want to come back to the traditional markets as well. I don’t think we want to have too many opportunities where we’d go outside the traditional markets. Places like Anaheim or San Diego or Nashville, anywhere that’s really not a college area, would be interesting to spring up because who knows where the next college hockey program could arise from. It could be San Diego and I could be making out [a job] application pretty quick.”

“The tournament has grown to another level,” said McDonald.”If you look back at the men’s basketball tournament 20 years ago when they went from home courts to neutral courts, that’s what’s happening.”

In taking a look at all seven of the potential sites, it seems that the NCAA is determined to keep the Frozen Four in traditional areas, but at the same time, get away from the traditional market. This seems to indicate that the committee may lean towards two traditional sites and one non-traditional site for these three Frozen Fours.

To sum it all up, I think this can be broken up into three separate and distinct races.

I would define these three races as:

Boston vs. East Rutherford

Milwaukee vs. Columbus

Kansas City vs. St. Louis vs. San Jose

The first race is an eastern race, Hockey East vs. ECAC, if thats what you want to call it. I think that it would be a safe assumption that Boston would get one of these Frozen Fours.

The second race is a western race, or WCHA vs. CCHA. The CCHA hasnt hosted a Frozen Four since 1996 in Cincinnati, and it is definitely looking for a chance to redeem itself after some of the unfortunate events that occurred there. But, Milwaukee is traditional and they have done a magnificent job each and every time. This battle is close, but I have to give it to Milwaukee.

The third race is the non-traditional race. It seems to me that there is a battle within a battle here, as Kansas City fights with St. Louis, and the two then battle San Jose. The Anaheim experience has a lot of fans gun shy, but the city gets a big boost from having Rensselaer, an experienced host, as it’s co-host. That lends a lot of credence to their bid, and with the array of college graduates and schools in the area, it could be the favorite. But Kansas City has experience in college events and St. Louis is a hockey town. This one is real tough.

“We picked seven very, very good sites,” said McDonald.

In the end, without looking at any of the money, or the guarantees, and just judging based on the information that I have, here’s my prediction as to where all of us will be going from 2004-2006.